The evolution of teleconferencing to a more lifelike and transparent audio/video medium depends upon, among other things, the evolution of teleconferencing audio capabilities. The more realistic the sound, the more lifelike a teleconference will be and the more persons and businesses will use it. Some present-day teleconferencing systems have already evolved to the point of including high-fidelity audio systems (100-7000 Hz bandwidth). These systems provide a significant improvement over older telephone systems (200-3200 Hz bandwidth). However, such high fidelity systems are by no means the limits of audio evolution in teleconferencing.
Spatial realism is highly desirable for audio/video teleconferencing. This is because of the need of a listener to follow, for example, a discussion among a panel of dynamic, multiple, and possibly simultaneous talkers. The need for spatial realism leads to consideration of multi-channel audio systems in teleconferencing, which, at a minimum, involves two channels (i.e., stereophonic).
Many present-day teleconferencing systems have a single (monophonic) full-duplex audio channel for voice communication. These systems, which range from simple speaker-phones to modern video teleconferencing systems, typically employ acoustic echo cancellers (AECs) to remove undesired echos that result from acoustic coupling. This coupling results when sound emitted from the teleconference loudspeaker (in response to a signal from a remote location), arrives at the teleconference microphone in the same room (i.e., the echo). The microphone generates a signal in response to this sound that is returned to the remote room in which it was originally generated. An AEC employs an adaptive filter to estimate the impulse response from the loudspeaker to the microphone in a room in which an echo occurs and to generate a signal to be subtracted from the receiver signal to cancel that echo electrically. Like monophonic teleconferencing, high-quality stereophonic teleconferencing requires AEC.
Stereophonic AEC presents a problem which does not exist in the monophonic context. In monophonic teleconferencing systems, a single adaptive filter is used to estimate a single impulse response from the loudspeaker to the microphone in the room experiencing an echo. There is only one impulse response to estimate because there is only one loudspeaker and one microphone in the room. As the adaptive filter impulse response estimate approaches the true impulse response of the room, the difference between these responses approaches zero. Once their difference is very small, the effects of echo are reduced. The ability to reduce echo is independent of the signal from the loudspeaker, since the real and estimated impulse responses are equal (or nearly so) and both the room (with its real impulse response) and the adaptive filter (with its estimated impulse response) are excited by the same signal.
In multi-channel stereophonic teleconferencing systems, multiple (e.g., two) adaptive filters are used to estimate the multiple (e.g., two) impulse responses of the room. Each adaptive filter is associated with a distinct acoustic path from a loudspeaker to a microphone in the receiving room. Rather than being able to independently estimate the individual impulse responses of the room, conventional stereophonic AEC systems derive impulse responses which have a combined effect of reducing echo. This limitation on independent response derivation is due to the fact that the AEC system can measure only a single signal per microphone. This signal is the sum of multiple acoustic signals arriving at a single microphone through multiple acoustic paths. Thus, the AEC cannot observe the individual impulse responses of the room. The problem with deriving impulse response estimates based on the combined effect of reduced echo is that such combined effect does not necessarily mean that the actual individual impulse responses are accurately estimated. When individual impulse responses are not accurately estimated, the ability of the AEC system to be robust to changes in the acoustic characteristics of the remote location is limited, commonly resulting in undesirable lapses in performance.
FIG. 1 presents a schematic diagram of a conventional stereophonic (two-channel) AEC system in the context of stereo teleconferencing between two locations. A transmission room 1 is depicted on the right of the figure. Transmission room 1 includes two microphones 2, 3 which are used to pick up signals from an acoustic source 4 (e.g., a speaking person) via two acoustic paths that are characterized by the impulse responses g1(t) and g2(t). (For clarity of presentation, all acoustic paths are assumed to include the corresponding loudspeaker and/or microphone responses.) Output from microphones 2, 3 are stereophonic channel source signals x2(t) and x1(t), respectively. These stereophonic channel source signals, x2(t) and x1(t), are then transmitted via a telecommunications network (such as a telephone or an ATM network) to loudspeakers 11, 12 in a receiving room 10 (shown on the left). For convenience, this direction will herein be termed the upstream direction and transmissions in the opposite direction, i.e., from room 10 to room 1, will be termed the downstream direction. The terms upstream and downstream are not intended to be limiting and have no particular connotation other than to differentiate between two directions. Loudspeakers 11, 12 are acoustically coupled to microphone 14 in receiving room 10 via the paths indicated with impulse responses h1(t) and h2(t). These are the paths by which acoustic echo signals arrive at microphone 14.
The output of the microphone 14 is signal y(t), which is a signal representing acoustic signals in the receiving room impinging on the microphone. These acoustic signals include the acoustic echo signals as well as any signals independently generated in the room (such as by a speaking person). Loudspeakers 11, 12 are also acoustically coupled to microphone 13 by other acoustic paths. For clarity of presentation, however, only the coupling to microphone 14 and AEC with respect to its output will be discussed.
Further, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the analysis concerning AEC for the output of microphone 14 is applicable to the output of microphone 13 as well. Similarly, those skilled in the art will recognize that AEC as performed for the outputs of microphones 13 and 14 in receiving room 10 also may be advantageously performed for the outputs of microphones 2 and 3 in transmitting room 1, wherein the functions of receiving room 10 and transmitting room 1 are swapped.
If nothing were done to cancel the acoustic echo signals in receiving room 10, these echoes would pass back to loudspeaker 5 in transmission room 1 (via microphone 14 and the telecommunications network) and would be circulated repeatedly, producing undesirable multiple echoes, or even worse, howling instability. This, of course, is the reason that providing AEC capability is advantageous.
Conventional AECs typically derive an estimate of the echo with use of a finite impulse response (FIR) filter with adjustable coefficients. This “adaptable” filter models the acoustic impulse response of the echo path in the receiving room 10. FIG. 1 generally illustrates this technique with use of AEC 20 using two adaptive FIR filters 16, 15 having impulse responses, ĥ1(t) and ĥ2(t), respectively, to model the two echo paths in the receiving room 10. Filters 16, 15 may be located anywhere in the system (i.e., at the transmitting room 1, in the telecommunications network, or at the receiving room 10), but are preferably located at the receiving room 10.
Driving these filters 16, 15 with the upstream loudspeaker signals x1(t) and x2(t) produces signals ŷ1(t) and ŷ2(t), which are components of a total echo estimate. The sum of these two echo estimate component signals yields the total echo estimate signal, ŷ(t), at the output of summing circuit 17. This echo estimate signal, ŷ(t), is subtracted from the downstream signal y(t) by subtraction circuit 18 to form an error signal e(t). Error signal e(t) is intended to be small (i.e., driven towards zero) in the absence of near-end speech (i.e., speech generated in the receiving room).
In most conventional AEC applications, the coefficients of adaptive filters 15, 16 are derived using well-known techniques, such as the familiar LMS (or stochastic gradient) algorithm. The coefficients are updated in an effort to reduce the error signal to zero. As such, the coefficients ĥ1(t) and ĥ2(t) are a function of the stereophonic signals x2(t) and x1(t) and the error signal, e(t).
As mentioned above, unlike monophonic AECs, conventional stereophonic AECs do not independently estimate the individual impulse responses of a room. Rather, conventional stereophonic AEC systems derive impulse responses which have a combined effect of reducing echo. Unless individual impulse responses are accurately estimated, the ability of the AEC system to be robust to changes in the acoustic characteristics of the remote location is limited and undesirable lapses in performance may occur.
This problem is discussed fully in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/395,834, entitled A Frequency Domain Stereophonic Acoustic Echo Canceller Utilizing Non-Linear Transformation, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Not only must the adaptation algorithm of filters 15, 16 track variations in the receiving room, it must also track variations in the transmission room. The latter variations are particularly difficult to track. For instance, if one talker stops talking and another starts talking at a different location in the room, the impulse responses, g1 and g2, change abruptly and by very large amounts.
J. Benesty, A. Gilloire, Y. Grenier, A frequency domain stereophonic acoustic echo canceller exploiting the coherence between the channels, Acoustic Research Letters Online, 21 Jul. 1999, discloses a frequency domain algorithm for use in a stereophonic echo canceller that exploits the coherence between the channels.
As can be seen from the above discussion, therefore, the challenge is to devise an approach which (as in the case of a single-channel echo canceller) converges independently of variations in the transmission room. Thus, it is desirable to de-correlate x1 and x2.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,694,020 discloses a teleconferencing system that de-correlates the channel signals in a multi-channel teleconferencing system. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a stereophonic teleconferencing system that includes circuitry for de-correlating x1 and x2 in accordance with the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,756.
The system of FIG. 2 is identical to that of FIG. 1 except for the presence of non-linear signal transformation modules 25, 30 (NL), which have been inserted in the paths between microphones 3, 2 of transmission room 1 and loudspeakers 11, 12 of receiving room 10. By operation of non-linear transformation modules 25, 30, stereophonic source signals x1(t) and x2(t) are transformed to signals x1′(t) and x2′(t), respectively, where “′” indicates a transformed signal which (in this case) advantageously has a reduced correlation with the other transformed signal of the stereophonic system.
As with the system presented in FIG. 1, the filters of AEC 20 may be located anywhere within the system, but are preferably located at receiving room 10. Non-linear transformation modules 25, 30 also may be located anywhere (so long as receiving room 10 and AEC 20 both receive the transformed signals as shown), but are preferably located at transmitting room 1.
Specifically, in accordance with one embodiment of the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,756, the signals x1(t) and x2(t) are advantageously partially de-correlated by adding to each a small non-linear function of the corresponding signal itself. It is well-known that the coherence magnitude between two processes is equal to one (1) if and only if they are linearly dependent. Therefore, by adding a “noise” component to each signal, the coherence is reduced. However, by combining the signal with an additive component which is similar to the original signal, the audible degradation may be advantageously minimized, as compared to the effect of adding, for example, a random noise component. This is particularly true for signals such as speech, where the harmonic structure of the signal tends to mask the distortion.
Thus, a linear relation between x1′(t) and x2′(t) is avoided, thereby ensuring that the coherence magnitude will be smaller than one. Such a transformation reduces the coherence and hence the condition number of the covariance matrix, thereby improving the misalignment. Of course, the use of this transformation is particularly advantageous when its influence is inaudible and does not have any deleterious effect on stereo perception. For this reason, it is preferable that the multiplier, α, be relatively small.
In one illustrative embodiment of U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,756, the non-linear functions f1 and f2 as applied by non-linear function module 32 are each half-wave rectifier functions.
The above-described solution proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,756 is a simple and efficient solution that overcomes the above-discussed problems by adding a small non-linearity into each channel. The distortion due to the non-linearity is hardly perceptible and does not affect the stereo effect, yet reduces inter-channel coherence, thereby allowing reduction of misalignment to a low level. However, because the introduced distortion is so small (so as not to significantly affect sound quality), the echo cancellation algorithm must be very powerful in order to converge to a solution within a reasonably small period of time when conditions in the room change. A least mean squares (LMS) solution does not converge fast enough. A much more powerful algorithm is necessary in order to make the system illustrated in FIG. 2 work.
The aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,694,020 discloses an acoustic echo canceller that exploits the coherence between multiple channels in the system illustrated in FIG. 2. Particularly, it discloses one efficient frequency-domain adaptive algorithm used in the echo canceller circuits.